Sabal Causiarum?

[3DThrills]

North Central Florida.

She popped up about 11 years ago and a few years later began growing very rapidly.
The trunk is about 2 feet wide at the base.
The trunk is only about 5 feet high and the canopy is already a full 20 feet.
I've planted 100 of last years seeds this spring, they're doing great.

Are those ligules? 

[3DThrills]

Here are the seeds if that helps with ID.

I waited until spring to plant last year's seeds and everything grew.
Earliest plantings are producing a 3rd frond.

 

[OC2Texaspalmlvr]

15 hours ago, 3DThrills said:

Here are the seeds if that helps with ID.

Welcome to PT !!! Your sabal in question definitely has ligules but your right to provide the seeds as its the best way to ID it. Hopefully @PalmatierMeg will see this and give her opinion. Beautiful palm regardless and love all the gorilla plantings ! 

T J 

[sonoranfans]

I can say what is is not, harder to say what it is.  It is not a sabal palmetto, petioles are heavy, way too thick for a shade grown or any palmetto.  Its not a domingensis as fruit are way too small.  It is consistent with sabal causiarum but those "ligules" dont look like any ligules I have seen on sabal causiarum.  Ligules do not look fibrous with perforations they tend to look like straps and are actually green in some cases.  Guatmalensis is a large sabal but with 11-15mm fruits so it is not one of those.  Maritima another large sabal, might be a possibility but those are pretty uncommon in cultivation. though the fruit size is close to the palm pictured, though not differentiable from causiarum.  I think its likely a causiarum that just hasnt grow the full ligules yet.  It could still be maritima and fruit size, branching orders of the inflorescence are the same in maritima and causiarum.  One visible differentiating factor betweent hese two is causiarum inflorscence extend beyond the leaves  while maritima does not.  I would be a little careful with that one as my causiarum was  bigger palm before the inflorescences extended that far.  But today they clearly extend at least 2 feet past the leaves.  Likely a cauiarum but I have seen smallish "fibrous perforated" ligules on other sabals.  Here is a pic that when zoomed you can see the tan ligules.  These are about the smallest ligules I have seen on a causiarum and they only appeared a could years after trunking.  Today,3 1/2 years later I cannot see ligules from the ground at all thought the tree is quite tall. 

 

I bought this palm as domingensis but the 3 orders of branching on the infloresence and small fruuit size(7-9mm) eliminate Domingensis.  The clade tree of sabal has domingensis maritima and causiarum as closest species to each other  I can eliminate maritima by the longer than leaves inflorescence stalks.  Here is Don Hodels monograph on sabals for a deeper read that includes separation of some sabal sp by chemistry panels and leaf architecture.  Here is a pic showing the inflorescence notably longer than the leaves on the left side of the ball with the black fruit.

A Monograph of Sabal (Arecaceae_ Coryphoideae).pdf

[edbrown_III]

heres a Sabal key from Dr. Noblick 

[sonoranfans]

13 hours ago, edbrown_III said:

heres a Sabal key from Dr. Noblick 

this differs from Zonas monograph as s causiarum  orders of branching is 3 and domingensis is 4, which Zona ID'd a differentiating feature.  Because these species have been mistaken historically, I am taking Zonas model as he did full chemistry panels co-establishing the identifying feature of branching orders of palms in habitat.  The fruit sizes are different in the two but there is some potential for overlap in fruit sizes as measuring a fruit at 10mm may lead to enough measurement error.  Perhaps fruits are enough for some palms like mine which clearly averages 8mm or so in fruit size, well lower than domingensis lower limit.  Its also useful to point out that flavonoid panels should also match or they are not the same species.   This was an extra measure of confidence to me in the work of Zona, since the species have some overlap in habitat and have been mistaken.  The flavonoid panels will always be the same within species and where they differ with other species, this can be used to increase confidence in the initial population ID assignmentsl.   Chemotaxonomy is an extra tool to make sure you do get the right assignments.  For example if causiarum do have 3 OR 4 orders of branching in the assigned examples, the chemistry panels should look the same.  In table 2 of Zonas monograph one can see the #5,#6 flavonoids differ markedly so he can use this to correct misidentifications of causiarum and Domingensis by biological taxonomy.  Looks to me like some "causiarum" may have actually been domingensis(4 orders of branching) in Noblicks table which differs from Zonas there.

[sonoranfans]

My apologies to both Don Hodel and Scott Zona for referring to Zonas monograph as Hodels.  Hodel has contributed greatly to palms, for some reason I associated his name, perhapos because he came up with the ligule differentiation feature that Zona did not report as differentiating.  Sorry gentlemen but the post edit period is over my mistake.  A:Lso I apologize to readers that my spelling has mistakes, I do need reading glasses but am kind of stubborn about it.

[3DThrills]

Thank you all.

My inflorescence do not yet extend beyond the fronds, which reach 10 feet from the trunk.
There were 7 of them this year. They are completely packed with flowers and attract swarms of pollenators of many different varieties.

I dug up some pics I took in June, if they provide any more clues?
Those first seedlings now have 3 and in some cases, 4 fronds.

 

Edited November 13, 2023 by 3DThrills

[3DThrills]

I still have the bare infloresence stalks on the tree and I think they look most like C.
I can take a pic if anyone wants to see them.

[sonoranfans]

I have trouble seeing th eorsers of branching from that picture with the flowers, the fruits make it much easier.  IF it is like C that separates causiarum and maritima from domingensis but as I stated my tree did nto extend the inflorescence past the leaves till it was a bigger palm than yours.  Might be they havent extended yet but it may also be maritima.  

[3DThrills]

Well both species seem similar and both are huge magnificent palms, so I'm happy. Thanks for the help.

Now I want to fill my neighborhood with them. Might donate a few to the town if they have any median strips wide enough to handle them.

[SouthFLA]

Sabal palmetto on the right, Sabal causiarum on the left. Took this picture today in Ft. Pierce FL, just west of I-95. They look completely different when viewed side by side. I'd wager the palmetto is at least 3x older than the causiarum.

[SoFlo]

Plantings in the middle of I95.

[3DThrills]

Here is a 1 year progress report.
She is growing well. I feel like she put on at least 2 feet.
I cut off 9 bottom fronds and they are 11 feet long.
As Sonoranfans predicted, the flower stalks sprouted higher up this year. 

I would like to offer a young Causiarum seedling to all those who responded to this thread last year.
Just send me a shipping address.

I planted hundreds of seeds this year and gave up on them after 2 months but they finally popped up.
I've moved 60 to individual gallon bags so far and will bag about 200. I've got a few hundred more in half-barrels.
I've also got 100 seedlings planted in 2023, also in half barrels.
This gave the seedlings legroom but no elbow room at all.

The plants in tiny pots and bags developed lots of leaves and a trunk, but very small.
The plants in the half-barrels are up to 18 inches tall now after 18 months.
The bottom half of the barrels was filled with leaf mulch and the seedlings don't seem to mind the tight quarters.
In March I will lift the sides off these barrels and wash the soil from the roots and put them in 3 and 10 gallon bags.